URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2018_Melissa-McCarthy

“We want to know where that carbon goes. The genetic tools will help us to understand ecosystem function. And, what we’re learning in EXPORTS is directly applicable to the kinds of studies we’re doing in Narragansett Bay.”

Tatiana Rynearson Professor Oceanography

- Tatiana Rynearson

As part of the EXPORTS project, the URI team aims to identify genes expressed by the grazers of the phytoplankton to determine whether they are starving

or well fed, details that will shed light on who is eating how much in the water column. Rynearson says scientists know little about this activity in the so- called “twilight zone” — the barely lit

ocean layer where carbon gets digested through the food chain, respired back into the atmosphere, or is buried in the ocean floor. “We want to know where that carbon goes,” she adds. “The genetic tools will help us to understand ecosystem function. And, what we’re learning in EXPORTS is directly applicable to the kinds of studies we’re doing in Narragansett Bay.” The EXPORTS campaign also offers a unique platform for working across teams and sharing data as all of the projects fall under the umbrella of quantifying the export and fate of upper ocean net primary production. “This is really exciting and offers the chance for close collaboration” Rynearson says. “NASA’s investment in this campaign is like a science multiplier. We’re doing things together that we couldn’t do alone.”

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Photo of diatom.